Familiarity and Moderation as Taste Markers - Tracing the Blasé Attitude in Musical Taste

• In Event: 545 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. Cultural Capital II

Abstract

My paper adds to the sociological tradition perceiving of musical taste as symbolic boundaries by investigating how this taste reflects and reproduces larger societal stratification patterns. Surveying the two major strands of the research with Bourdieu (1984) and Peterson (1992), I identify tie strength and the limited, conventional predictors as two previously neglected aspects. To tackle these, I draw on Simmel's The Metropolis and Mental Life ([1903] 2002) which suggests the urban-rural-axis as a relevant predictor and the blasé attitude of city residents as a theoretical explanation of weaker ties. My analysis uses data from the 1993 GSS cultural module to assess whether Simmel's theory applies to musical taste. To operationalize the differing strength in stimulation between rural and urban environments and the blasé attitude, I measure the number of unfamiliar musical genres and the tie strength to known genres respectively. The results of my analysis confirm that residents of urban environments have a broader musical taste, that is are familiar with more musical genres than their rural counterparts. Additionally, their taste is blasé in the sense that they draw less extreme distinctions and moderate ties prevail. Contrary to a direct transfer of Simmel's theory to explaining musical taste, the blasé attitude is most pronounced in suburban environments instead of metropolises or urban centers and the role of economic independence seems to be inverted in these blasé hubs. Nonetheless, Simmel's blasé attitude concept proves to be valuable for the study of boundaries in musical taste and the underlying stratification patterns.

Author

• Friedolin Merhout, Duke University